Krugman: Molly Ivins: Right on Iraq -- And Not Happy About It

[kpete]

Molly Ivins: Right on Iraq -- And Not Happy About It

By E&P Staff

Published: February 01, 2007 10:55 PM ET

NEW YORK In his Friday column for The New York Times, Paul Krugman pays tribute to fellow liberal Molly Ivins, who passed away Wednesday. In the process, he cites her prescient writings on Iraq.

Here's his intro to that section of his column, and her quotes. The entire column is available to pay subscribers at www.nytimes.com.
*

I’ve been going through Molly’s columns from 2002 and 2003, the period when most of the wise men of the press cheered as Our Leader took us to war on false pretenses, then dismissed as “Bush haters” anyone who complained about the absence of W.M.D. or warned that the victory celebrations were premature. Here are a few selections:

Nov. 19, 2002: “The greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? ... There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now.”

Jan. 16, 2003: “I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

July 14, 2003: “I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. ... We don’t need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers — we need people who know how to fix water and power plants.”

Oct. 7, 2003: “Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire. ...I’ve got an even-money bet out that says more Americans will be killed in the peace than in the war, and more Iraqis will be killed by Americans in the peace than in the war. Not the first time I’ve had a bet out that I hoped I’d lose.”

more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003541107

[Captain Hilts]

1. Makes me want to cry. For Molly, and the troops. nt

[salin]

2. tears

for Molly - and thanks for Krugman for writing this.

[Rick Myers]

3. same with me... tears...

G'bye Molly! We'll miss you. Very much...

Keep an eye on us...

O8)

[lordsummerisle]

4. Thanks for posting that

Molly was a genius. I'll be mourning her loss for quite a while. I'm also really pissed that the most widely read progressive voice in the country has been silenced...

[BurtWorm]

5. "Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver."

So Molly Ivins — who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East — got almost everything right. Meanwhile, how did those who did have all those credentials do?

With very few exceptions, they got everything wrong. They bought the obviously cooked case for war — or found their own reasons to endorse the invasion. They didn’t see the folly of the venture, which was almost as obvious in prospect as it is with the benefit of hindsight. And they took years to realize that everything we were being told about progress in Iraq was a lie.

Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Molly had that courage; not enough others can say the same.

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/opinion/02krugman.html?hp

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Full, non-subscriber copy of the column here

http://wealthyfrenchman.blogspot.com/2007/02/missing-molly-ivins.html

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Liberated Krugman: Missing Molly Ivins

From The New York Times via the Wealthy Frenchman
Dated Friday February 2

Missing Molly Ivins
by Paul Krugman

Molly Ivins, the Texas columnist, died of breast cancer on Wednesday. I first met her more than three years ago, when our book tours crossed. She was, as she wrote, “a card-carrying member of The Great Liberal Backlash of 2003, one of the half-dozen or so writers now schlepping around the country promoting books that do not speak kindly of Our Leader’s record.”

I can’t claim to have known her well. But I spent enough time with her, and paid enough attention to her work, to know that obituaries that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes, she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful accountable.

She explained her philosophy in a stinging 1995 article in Mother Jones magazine about Rush Limbaugh. “Satire ... has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful,” she wrote. “When you use satire against powerless people ... it is like kicking a cripple.”

Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that. And the fact that she remembered these truths explains something I haven’t seen pointed out in any of the tributes: her extraordinary prescience on the central political issue of our time.

Read more.

This poster firmly believes that in a democracy, information and discussion of civic affairs should be available to the public free. Fuck The New York Times.

[mzmolly]

9. Thanks

JR.

[mzmolly]

8. Molly and many, many others who "they" refused to listen to.

RIP good lady.